Whatever else you might think of them, Google is certainly not afraid to move forward and offer new products. One of the most recent examples is the already popular Chrome open source browser designed to eat into Microsoft’s share of the browser market but there are many other plans going on in the background and a lot of initiatives are released with barely a mumble to the general public.

Google news is a popular source of news stories and it is set to be vastly updated through the inclusion of scanned papers from yesteryear to offer a historical timeline of dates and events. Over 100 different papers are apparently keen to be involved and old issues of the paper would be scanned and then indexed so that users can gather information.

The indexing system will enable readers to skip to a specific passage from any particular paper or date, and a list of related articles will also be displayed on the right of the page to offer supporting pieces and more information on a particular story. Working in a similar fashion to Google Books it is actually a progression of something that Google has been attempting with two major US newspapers for some time now.

Richard Sharp is the founder of gadgetsandgizmos.org. He loves technology, gadgets (comes with the territory) and social media. You'll find him writing features, attending events and playing with cool tech. Life's good.